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I grew up in Newtown Connecticut; I attended Newtown High School, Newtown Middle School, Reed Intermediate School (Newtown Intermediate School) and Middle Gate Elementary (a deviation from the norm of Newtown ----- School). I’m a history major and a philosophy minor, hence my addition to this page, of course. I wasn’t originally going to attend Western Connecticut to earn my Bachelors, but life takes the course it’s going to. After an adjustment period, I settled in here. My department is full of faculty who I wouldn’t dream of missing the opportunity to learn from; the philosophy department as well. Having taken Dr. Dalton’s introduction class and two seminars with himself and President Clark, I was guided to find a passion for philosophy, a love of wisdom, I hadn’t known was inside me. Someday I’d like to be a professor like the wonderful people I interact with here, but life takes the course it’s going to. Maybe I’ll be a lawyer, or a secondary education teacher, or maybe I’ll buy a fishing boat. In any case, Western will have prepared me for the future in ways for which I’ll be eternally grateful. Søren Kierkegaard was a suffering soul whose words often strike as ironic as they do somber, but in the regard of looking toward the future he perfectly says what’s on the mind of all college students, if I’m so bold to say it. He endeavored “to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.” Isn’t that why we’re all here?

Devin Kalal
Philosophy & Political Science double major

It all started in the eighth grade: after reading no more than half of Jostein Gaarder’s "Sophie’s World", I tossed the book aside and declared philosophy a sham in such a way only an annoyingly self-righteous eighth grader can properly manage. But alas! The punch line to the cosmic joke I call my life is that only a scant few years later, I would come to love philosophy so much that I would sell my undergraduate soul to it. I was a fool, an utter buffoon in the eighth grade for not seeing that philosophy is by far the coolest discipline in the universe (and in the interest of full disclosure I remain a fool and an utter buffoon to this day, but at least I am no longer a buffoon who thinks philosophy is a sham). In addition to philosophy and general buffoonery, my interests include listening to pretentious French music, drinking pretentious tea, not going to sleep when I’m supposed to, the X-Men, memes, and intersectional feminism.

“I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth!” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Chris grew up in Wilton, CT and the Wilton Public Schools. After pursuing his hobby of photography for a year at the Cleveland Art Institute, he decided move back to Connecticut and study psychology at WCSU in the summer of 2014. Always having an interest in reality, consciousness, and human thought, he was exposed to the philosophy department in his very first class; philosophy in film. Since then, he has expanded from the traditional psychology major to the Interdisciplinary Studies major to include both philosophy and psychology. He seeks to find a useful common ground of these two disciplines and the day to day existence of human thought. This effort is coupled by his fascination with science, technology, and space, as well as the humanistic passions of comedy, film, and television.

"Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that." - George Carlin

Molly Sabbagh
Philosophy minor

Molly is a Danbury native graduating with a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Philosophy. Her ultimate career goal is to help others, and so Molly took on Psychology with that at heart. Philosophy became her minor when she discovered her own love of wisdom, and because she appreciated the fact that Philosophy picks up where science cannot reach. Psychology offers an understanding to the human mind while Philosophy ponders the unknowns. Both subjects help her understand the world and those who inhabit it. Molly wishes to continue her studies in both Psychology and Philosophy in search of the answer to "how does one develop, and develop well, despite all the unknowns in this reality?" She hopes to teach as a University professor after graduate school. Some of her favorite philosophers are Aristotle, Confucius, Epictetus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Immanuel Kant. Molly holds the position of Secretary for the Philosophy Club and President of WCSU's Psi Chi. As Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Molly encapsulates this idea in the time she dedicates to her education."

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." - Hypatia